


Part of Her World

by theloverneverleaves



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: ( malec to come later ), Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Beach House, F/F, Mermaid Lightwoods, Science Bros, all good and fun stuff, future pure relationships, marine biologist maia, mermaid au, past abusive relationships, scientist magnus, soft girls falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloverneverleaves/pseuds/theloverneverleaves
Summary: The research trip to the small Caribbean island of Idris is a dream come true for Maia Roberts. After years of study, a joint project with Dr Magnus Bane will finally give her what she needs to get her own PhD.  After leaving everything she knows behind for her work, she just might just find that there's more to life on a tropical island than just working all day. That and the island seems to have a few secrets to reveal, and one of them is called Isabelle...aka mermaid au ft. science bros maia, magnus & luke





	1. Day One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends and welcome to the fic that is affectionately known as 'lesbian mermaids 2k18'. Written as part of the [SHAUM Big Bang](https://shadowhuntersaumondays.tumblr.com), I'm happy to announce that what you see here is definitely only part one.
> 
> This is a fic that focuses mostly on Maia and Maiabelle, but I'm intending to include Malec in the future too!
> 
> A huge thank you to [edin](http://itsragnorfell.tumblr.com) for helping me beta and [charl](http://katlisha.tumblr.com) for her amazing artwork. You guys are amazing and I love you both xoxo
> 
> As always, feel free to yell at me on [tumblr](http://mermaidmaiabelle.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/izzy_biwoods) xoxo

## An Investigation into the Lyn Reef, Idris,  
and its Effect on Marine Life in the Surrounding Area

##### Magnus Bane, PhD & Maia Roberts, MSc

This report will explore the results of a six-month study into the Lyn Reef, located along the eastern coast of Idris. Compared to surrounding areas in the region, marine life around Idris has been reported to be more resilient to the effects of climate change and other environmental factors. The coral reef has also shown considerable signs of resilience and recovery for a formation of this type. This study aims to explore the causes for this phenomenon, and conclude whether or not this recovery could be replicated in other locations across the world.

##### Supporting Documentation:

Video Diaries (REDACTED)

_Accessing Drive…_

_Recovering Video Logs…_

_Playing 1 / 257 ..._

“We have to start now, Maia, we’re on the way there,” Magnus protested softly, holding the camera aloft in the air. Maia rolled her eyes, pointedly looking out of the airplane window. The sea below was a bright, vibrant blue. It was nothing like home, where the ocean was always a little cold and a little grey  – or so it felt. All of a sudden she’d been whisked away to a tropical paradise, miles away from all of her problems.

But then, that was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

“At least say hi,” Magnus cajoled gently. She waved half heartedly, eyes still on the ocean. 

“Hi,” she answered flatly, mostly talking to the perspex window.

“Okay, so today is April 18th, and Miss Roberts here and I are currently on the flight out to Alicante, which is the main settlement and airport for the island of Idris. We had to fly to Miami to get a plane out here, and by the time we arrive we’ll be about 1,320 miles away from home,” Magnus introduced easily. 

“I thought this was meant to be a scientific journal, not a blog for your Instagram followers,” Maia commented.

“Firstly, I’m offended that you think this isn’t scientific. Secondly, I think my Instagram followers are more interested in my eyeshadow techniques than my work as a scientist.”

“Then stop making it sound like a holiday diary!” 

“How does it sound like a holiday diary?!”

* * *

“Okay, so, as I was saying, we’re about thirty minutes outside of Idris,” Magnus started again. Maia resisted rolling her eyes, instead turning back to the magazine she’d pulled out of the seat pocket in front of her. She did her best to tune out Magnus describing the basics of their expedition to the camera. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know. And really, she liked Magnus. He was fun, and far more respectful than half of the children she’d been forced to work with over her academic career. The people - usually men - that she'd worked with over the years had ranged from insensitive to just plain old misogynistic. Compared to all that, she'd never felt happier about her lab partner, especially someone she'd been spending so much time with.

Magnus had always been good to her. He specialised in biochemistry, and since he was the one with the doctorate, he was technically her supervisor. She was still studying for her own PhD, and she hoped that if everything went well with this trip, she might be able to use to the resulting paper in her thesis. The Lyn Reefs had become a point of interest for her ever since she’d started talking about it with the lead researcher at the marine unit on Idris. The unit was mostly funded by her college, which was why the trip hadn’t been too hard to pitch. It wasn’t exactly a great expense to have them down here for a while.

Plus, there was something genuinely interesting going on down in that reef. All across the planet, people in her field had been finding instances of pollution and climate change. Reefs dying off in rising temperatures and oil spills, and a whole host of other things inflicted on the oceans by the human race. But Idris was different. Idris wasn’t dying. It was  _ flourishing _ , and no one could really explain why. 

Maia wanted to explain why. If it was something they could replicate, if she could somehow help save the oceans that humanity had managed to break… well, maybe she’d be doing something worthwhile with her life then. And she needed worthwhile right now. She needed to do something  _ good _ , and frankly, if this was it, she’d be happy for the rest of her days.

At least, that was what she told herself. She hadn’t even hit thirty yet, so maybe it was a little early to talk about being happily ever afters. 

The travel magazine on the plane was filled with the usual adverts for a hundred different travel locations across the world. Tropical islands and far away lands, places Maia had only ever dreamed of. Her first and only flight before this had been when her mother and father had forced her to go on a family vacation to Minnesota.

She still didn’t understand why they’d picked Minnesota. But then, she didn’t understand a lot about her family.

Really, it was about time she went a little further than Minnesota. She wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef one day, wanted to study the sea turtles and tropical fish across the globe. She might have always loved her field, but something about working somewhere warm and sunny for a while sounded attractive. 

But then, that was why she was going to Idris, wasn't it?

Maia closed the magazine gently as the cabin steward announced they would be landing shortly. Magnus was still recording, explaining the previously observed patterns of behaviour seen in the area around the reef. She leaned over towards the window a little, practically pushing her nose against the window to try and catch a glimpse of the island. 

And there it was.

“Magnus, look,” Maia said, her enthusiasm breaking through as Magnus cut off from his explanation and leaned a little closer. He frowned, peering as best he could.

“I don't see anything,” he said, and the disappointment was evident. She sighed, tugging on his sleeve slightly and leaning into the corner. It was as good an invitation to invade her personal space as anyway.

“Get in here, look,” Maia said, pointing as best she could. The edge of the island was just visible in the distance, as was the obvious pattern of the reef, just below the surface of the water. Magnus stretched over with the camera, and after a moment Maia rolled her eyes and took it from him, trying to angle it better to capture the view of the reef from the air. It was huge. And it was the most beautiful thing Maia had ever seen.

“It's more incredible than I thought,” Magnus sighed happily. Maia smiled. 

“Yeah.”

Home for six months. She'd felt nervous when she'd originally agreed to this assignment. She'd never been outside of the Tri-state area for more than a couple of weeks. Six months in Idris felt daunting. But looking down at the island and the reef, all Maia saw was the opportunity for the study of a lifetime.

The excitement bubbled out of her a little, and she couldn't help but smile. 

“Here we go.”

* * *

When they finally walked through the airport and out into the arrivals hall, Maia couldn’t help but break into a grin as she saw who was waiting for them. He was holding a handmade sign that just said “NYU Marine Biology Lab”, as if she would need it to find him. Maia couldn’t help but reach out to hug him as soon as she was close enough. There was something reassuring about having Luke’s arms around her again. Luke Garroway had always been more of a father figure to her than her own parents. They’d met when she was a little kid, and her parents had taken her to the aquarium every couple of weeks. Eventually they’d indulged her interests and let her take extra study sessions with Luke, who’d been a Marine Biology student at the time. She’d been heartbroken when he moved to Idris with his family about five years ago, but she’d been proud of him too. The unit out here was undeniably Luke’s, and it had been a move he needed to make. He’d achieved so much since then, and the chance to spend a few months out here on the project, working with Luke as well as Magnus…it had been too good a chance for Maia to resist.

She pulled back after a moment, smiling up at her former mentor, realising just how much she’d missed him in the last few years. “You got taller,” was all he said to her, and Maia couldn’t help but laugh. 

“It happens,” she replied with a slight shrug. “How are you? How’s Clary?”

“Good,” Luke said without hesitation, and Maia could tell that he meant it. “This place has been good to us.”

“It looks beautiful,” Maia agreed, making sure not to linger on anything too painful. She knew exactly what had driven Luke to move an ocean away from New York with almost no hesitation, and she wasn’t going to reopen old wounds. Things had been hard for him. But she had never been happier to see someone bounce back from some of their darkest moments. 

Whatever Luke had done, she could really use a little of that magic for herself right now.

“Wait until you see your place. You’re going to love it,” Luke promised solemnly, and Maia couldn’t help but smile. After a moment, Magnus stepped forward, letting go of his suitcase to hold out his hand. 

"Luke. It's been too long," Magnus offered warmly, and Luke smiled. Maia had been vaguely aware the two of them knew each other  – Magnus had been the one who'd made all the arrangements to come out to Idris for an extended period, and she also knew Magnus had been on extensive Skype calls with Luke to get an idea of what they were going to find before they even got on the plane. The two of them had been working together quite closely on the paperwork and research proposals, trying to work out what would have the most benefit for the academic community and the preservation of such precious coral reefs across the world.

This was important work. The fact that it was happening in a beautiful location under the supervision of an old friend was just a bonus for Maia. She couldn't forget she had a goal here. If this went well, she could have her own PhD in what felt like no time at all. The board wouldn't be able to deny her if this paper went as well as she hoped. 

Of course, they needed to actually work out what to put  _ in _ the paper before any of that would happen. 

"Nice to finally meet in person," Luke responded. He reached out for Magnus' abandoned suitcase, gesturing towards the exit on the other side of the small terminal building. It wasn't as if Idris got a lot of flights. It was blessedly free of tourism for the moment, or so Luke promised her. 

She had high hopes for this place, and the excitement bubbling inside her was something she didn't want to contain. She was ready to get started, and forget all about what she'd left behind in the city. This was a real chance for her to do something good and valuable. She wasn't about to waste it. 

"The car's outside. I've got the afternoon free, so I can help you two get settled in," Luke offered, and Maia nodded, hitching her backpack over her shoulder a little tighter. 

This was what she'd dreamed of for so long, and she was ready. Magnus, true to form, used his now free hand to unlock his phone and immediately begin filming.

"Really, again?" Maia asked, rolling her eyes a little.

"Document everything, Miss Roberts. First rule of being a scientist. Isn't that right, Luke?"

Luke chuckled, shrugging idly. "Oh, don't involve me in this. But I can tell you a little more about the island on the way over, so you've got something useful on that recording."

"See, this is what being helpful looks like," Magnus teased her gently. Maia just rolled her eyes, making a vague sound of disgust as she walked ahead of the two men towards the exit.

* * *

Idris as an island was fairly small: the main hub of civilisation was Alicante, which was only a twenty minute drive away from the Marine Biology unit, as well as Maia's new home. The island could be driven from side to side in a little under two hours, which meant it wasn't difficult to get around. There were various ports and fishing villages littered around the coast, mostly made up of locals and Idris natives. One of the island's biggest industries was fish, along with the harvest of some of the rare fruits that only seemed to grow in places like this. It was hardly a bustling hive of activity, and having just left New York, the island almost felt empty. But Maia found herself enjoying the silence.

The house they would be staying in was a five minute walk away from the Marine Biology unit, nestled at the top of the beach. Luke had explained the house had been purchased as part of the site when they'd built the unit. It was small, but looked sturdy enough. It was nestled in the embrace of palm trees and soft grass, which ran off into sand in what could only be about twenty or thirty paces. There was a decked porch out the front of the building, spilling out of the lounge, and the french doors stood open to allow the tropical breeze to drift through the building. 

Luke had been right  – the view was truly incredible. 

She was sharing the two-bed house with Magnus, which was definitely a new experience for her. She hadn't had a housemate in a long time, not since she'd gotten herself out of the terrible student accommodation she'd used in her first years of college. Sure, the rent was higher, but there was no price Maia could put on her privacy. Having Magnus just next door was definitely an odd feeling to get used to, after so many years of living alone.

The only bonus was there were two bathrooms. She'd ended up taking the much smaller one, allowing Magnus the bathtub, but it suited her. The room was more than big enough, the bed looked comfortable, and the view out of her window was of palm trees, blue skies and a hint of the ocean in the distance. 

Maia didn't think she'd be exaggerating if she called it paradise. It certainly  _ felt  _ like a paradise. 

She'd taken only about twenty minutes to unpack her suitcase of clothes, and set up the tiny window desk with her laptop and notebooks she'd brought along with her. Luke had warned her the internet wasn't the best at the house, but apparently they'd had a higher speed link installed at the Marine Biology unit, for sending huge batches of research notes and video logs out. If Maia abused that to download a little Netflix every now and again...well, no one would notice, right?

From the sounds of things next door, Magnus was taking a lot longer to unpack, so Maia decided to take the chance to explore for herself. They didn't start work until tomorrow, Luke encouraging them to enjoy the day and rest up after all the travelling they'd done. Maia knew she should probably be resting, but the last thing she wanted to do right was sit in her room and think. 

Pulling off her trainers at the veranda, she stepped onto the little decked path towards the beach, breathing a sigh of relief when she finally sunk her toes into the warm sand. She’d never been on a real beach before. Not one like this. Not one where the sea was impossibly blue and the sand actually felt soft and warm and gorgeous. The wind whipped through her hair, and she closed her eyes and just inhaled, taking the scent of the salt into her lungs. It was a dream, to get the chance to be here. An incredible, impossible dream. But it was real, and she was here, and she’d earned it.

As she stood there, soaking in the sun, Maia took a second to breathe. She had earned this, she reminded herself. It wasn't a fiction, she hadn't imagined it. She'd worked hard on her studies. She'd been a poor scholarship kid when she'd started out. She'd fought for her place at college, and spent every second she had studying and making sure she was going to use this chance she had. People like her didn't get many second chances. Failure wasn't an option. When most people had been out partying, Maia had been in the library, pouring over books and learning everything she could. It was that dedication that had gotten her a postgrad study, and it was that dedication that had gotten her here, now, on this project. She was good at what she did. She was  _ good _ . She deserved this.

Just as the peace started to settle in her bones, her phone vibrated violently in her pocket, breaking her reverie. She frowned, reaching for it, checking her notifications briefly. Clearly the internet at the house couldn't be too bad, because her social media notifications for the day had popped through, along with a couple of messages. It had been a long flight, and she'd kept her phone on airplane mode for most of the day, only using it for music and a few rounds of Candy Crush. 

The most interesting notification was the third one down - a message from her old lab partner, Bat. He'd been sweet and confused by everything, and had eventually switched majors. But that didn't mean Maia had stopped being friends with him. If anything, he was one of the closest friends she had back home. She didn't really have a lot of friends, when she thought about it. She'd been too busy for it. Maybe that was a little sad, but she'd made her choices. 

_ Thought you should know before someone else sprung it on you. Hope you're okay and arrived safe. _

Bat's message concluded with a link to a tweet, which she clicked without hesitation. The text loaded in a heartbeat, but the image was a little more reluctant. As she was waiting, her eyes skimmed the short message. 

"Romantic weekend with the bae!!" it read, with copious use of heart eye emojis. And then... oh. Jordan was tagged. 

He had a new girlfriend then. That was... probably for the best. 

_ Thanks. Arrived safe, will call when I can. _

Maia tapped out the message to Bat blindly before putting her phone back to sleep, clutching it tight in her hand. She resisted the desire to throw it into the ocean, her knuckles stretching white as she gripped the device a little harder than she probably should. It shouldn't hurt her anymore. Jordan had been... terrible. She was better off without him. And honestly, she'd never really loved him. Sure, she'd  _ liked _ him, but when she watched romance movies, read the stories about how love was supposed to make you starry eyed and thrilled to be around that person, Maia knew she'd never felt that. Jordan had never been her world. Not the way other boys had been the entire lives of her classmates. She'd accepted Jordan, and she'd thought he'd accepted her. She'd thought he had the same respect and affection for her that she had for him. 

She'd been wrong. But hey, that was her own stupid fault, wasn't it?

But she was here. In Idris. She was an ocean away from New York, and any mention of Jordan Kyle. Bat had done what he thought was right. And on some level, she knew he was right. If Luke or someone had asked her about it, if they somehow found out, or if her parents bothered to call... she didn't want to be blindsided by the news. At least this way she had the time to process and deal with it on her own terms.

But she didn't have to deal with Jordan Kyle, and that was another reason everything about this island was a paradise. 

"Everything alright?"

Maia jumped violently at the voice behind her, turning to find Magnus standing on the end of the boardwalk. He arched an eyebrow at her, looking her over. Maia exhaled shakily, sweeping her hair out of her eyes as she tucked her phone away.

"Yeah. Everything's fine," she promised him. He seemed to examine her closely for a second, looking her over. Magnus paused for a moment before leaning against the post at the end of the boardwalk.

"So... family, friends or romance?"

"What?" Maia asked with a frown, shaking her head a little.

"Whatever's got you so upset," Magnus prodded a little. Maia sighed, looking back out to the ocean. It looked so perfect out there. She'd always loved the water, but this was nothing like the Atlantic shores she knew back home. It was so much cleaner, fresher. Something about it was alluring. 

At that particular, Maia wanted to walk into the waves and never come back out. Life must be better as a fish.

"Old boyfriend. Jordan," Maia grumbled in response. She'd spent plenty of time with Magnus before flying out here, but they'd been mostly managed to keep things professional. She knew he lived next door to someone called Elias, and she knew when he was going for dinner with friends or with his boyfriend, when he was working the weekend. Just like he knew when she was meeting Bat after a lab, or spending the weekend curled up with a good book. But they didn't get too personal. Not with the intimate details, anyway.

But she was going to be living with Magnus for the foreseeable future, Maia reminded herself. Those boundaries just weren't going to hold up. They would be working together every day whilst they were out here, more or less. She relied on Magnus for company, and the success of this trip. She couldn't hold everything back forever. That was why she decided to be honest.

It had nothing to do with the fact that she just needed to complain at someone about how love sucked.

“Ah,” Magnus said knowingly, and Maia exhaled heavily. She folded her arms around her body, almost as if she was trying to comfort herself. That was nothing new, though. She'd had to fend for herself for a long time. It just… sucked realising how truly alone she was. 

“Why do men suck?” Maia complained a little, before looking over her shoulder. “No offense.” Magnus, to his credit, just chuckled softly. 

“None taken,” he told her calmly. They stood like that for a moment, in blissful peace and silence. Maia took in the gentle lap of the waves against the shore, watching the motion. It looked so simple out there. So easy.

Life as a fish was definitely looking more attractive by the second.

After a moment she felt more than heard someone approaching behind her. Magnus’ shoes had been abandoned on the boardwalk as he walked out onto the sand himself. His pants were turned up at the ankles, presumably to avoid some sort of fashion disaster. He stopped beside her, breathing for a moment before seeming to come to some sort of decision. And then…

“Imasu dumped me.”

“I'm so sorry,” Maia replied instinctively. She'd heard the name mentioned around the lab when they'd had their meetings. He was some sort of artist, maybe a musician. Maia wasn't aware of it being a terribly long term thing, but now that she actually thought about it, she wasn't aware of a lot of things about the life of Magnus Bane.

Maybe this was her chance to fix it.

“It's not your fault,” Magnus reassured her. “And it was hardly ever going to be a long term thing. He wasn't best pleased with the idea of me being here for months on end and wanted his ah….  _ Freedom _ .”

“That still sounds awful,” Maia pointed out. She didn't know why she was pushing, especially when she knew how raw her own wounds were. But maybe they just needed something stupid like this to bond over.

“Some people can't handle long distance. It's fine. It's hardly the first time,” Magnus told her. Maia glanced over at him. She didn't exactly know the full picture of Magnus’ dating history. He was proudly bisexual, which was probably one of the first things Magnus had told her about himself. He helped out at the LGBT+ society on campus sometimes, supporting events whenever he was required. Imasu was hardly his first relationship, but his tone betrayed just how hurt he'd been before. 

It was a sentiment Maia couldn't help but understand. Getting hurt was never fun, especially when it came to matters of the heart.

“My Mom said I was running away from my problems,” Maia whispered softly. She didn't have the best relationship with her parents, but they still called every couple of months, and she'd made sure to call before she got on the plane to Idris. Her mother hadn't been best pleased to hear about her breakup. But then, her mother had also been Jordan's biggest fan, so it made sense that she was upset with her only daughter. 

“Deciding to move across an ocean to a place you don't know, to live with a bunch of relative strangers isn't running away, Maia. If anything, it's incredibly brave. You're doing something you love. You should be proud.”

It was an odd feeling, to have someone so supportive of her, especially when it felt like they didn't know her that well. Maybe that was just an upshot of her history. She'd always been second best to her parents, and Jordan had never exactly been the supportive kind. She'd gotten used to being alone. She knew that. Even when she'd been surrounded by people, she'd always had to fend for herself, be her own inspiration. She'd gotten good at it too.

Maia had never expected Magnus to be anything more than a colleague on this trip, whether they were living together or not. Hearing him be so willing to listen to her silly personal issues, and not only that, give her praise for her choices? It was a completely foreign feeling. She didn't know what to do with it, didn't know what to say in response. 

Proving that he was intelligent in more than one way, Magnus seemed to realise that. He stepped further forward onto the sand, walking towards the sea. After a moment he paused, looking back at her. “You up for exploring? I think the lab is this way,” Magnus offered, gesturing down the shore. Maia looked in the direction he'd pointed. The house seemed to be nestled into a cove, so it was impossible to see. But frankly, exploring sounded much better than going back inside right now. 

“Sure,” she replied, walking forward to join him, moving out towards the waves. 

This paradise was the place she got to call home for the next few months. And she wasn't going to waste a single second of her time here on moping about what she'd left behind. Time to move forward, seize the moment. 

This was her paradise. She wanted to make the most of it. No matter what.

* * *

In the spirit of hospitality, Luke had invited them both over for dinner that night. Maia was glad for the company, and glad to not need to figure out food for the evening. By the time she and Magnus arrived at the house, the smell of good cooking was pouring out of the windows, and Maia felt her stomach rumble. They were easily at home in the place, Luke’s house feeling every bit as warm, safe and comfortable as she’d felt with the man all those years ago in New York. It was easy to settle into, and after barely an hour Maia felt like she’d been coming to visit for years. 

Luke had invited his daughter over, and her friend. Clary and Simon were much closer to Maia’s age, and had moved over when Luke had opened the research unit. Clary was bright and bubbly, an aspiring artist who took her every inspiration from the surroundings she now lived in. She also worked at a lifeguard in Alicante, which helped ends meet. Simon worked on a fishing boat, just a little shallow water thing that he operated alone. The two of them seemed to have quite the idyllic lifestyle. Maia envied them a little. Everything must be so much simpler, when that was the life you led.

After the food was done and dishes cleaned, the group of five ended up on the deck, the cool night breeze soothing after the heat of the day. There was a bottle of wine on the table, which Magnus took the liberty of pouring. Maia swirled her glass idly, watching the moths flutter around the porch lights. There was a lizard clinging to the wall. Maia didn’t think she’d ever seen one in real life before. It felt like there were far too many things she'd never seen before. She was just glad she got the chance to change that.

"So Luke mentioned you guys were out here for a research project?" Clary asked inquisitively, shifting forward on her chair. Maia smiled, nodding. They'd managed to avoid talk of work for most of the evening, instead just catching up. They'd all lived in New York for a time, so they'd had plenty in common to keep them going. Maia had also been interested to catch up with Luke, and how things were for him since he'd left the city he'd called home for so long. But from what she could tell, he was fine. They were all doing just fine.

"We're investigating the coral reef," Maia explained briefly. Simon's eyes seemed to light up a little at that, budging forward in his seat in eagerness.

"Yeah? What are you looking for?"

"We're not sure yet," Maia replied. "That's why it's a research project." After all, if they had all the answers already, then what was the point of doing the paper at all? 

"The coral's coping exceptionally well in the environment - thriving even. The reports Luke sends back to the university are fascinating. We just want to see if we can shed some light on why it's doing so well," Magnus said, by way of further explanation. Simon nodded, seeming to be thinking to himself.

"Cool, cool. What makes you think there's a reason though?" 

"Simon," Luke sighed, exasperated. 

"What? I'm just saying, sometimes stuff just... happens. Like rainbows. Who knows why they show up?"

"Combination of light refraction and reflection in water droplets. Also, every time a new LGBT person gets their wings" Magnus replied easily. Maia could see Clary hiding a laugh behind her glass, and she bit back a smile herself. Simon sputtered a little, trying to recover.

"I mean... I know  _ that _ , but you know. Some stuff just isn't meant to be explained. Like the Force. You can't science the Force."

"A coral reef isn't the Force, Simon," Clary reminded him gently. 

"I know! It's just... you could be wasting your time, is all," Simon finished lamely. Maia could help but feel a little touched at the sentiment. It was sweet of him to bother.

"It's science. Half the time we're doing research projects that don't conclude anything. But it doesn't make it a waste of time."

"But if it doesn't conclude anything then what's the point?" Simon asked, puzzled. Magnus chuckled. 

"Sometimes the research speaks for itself. Asking the questions can be enough, even if you don't get a single concrete answer," he explained, looking at Simon over the top of his glass. "We're just hoping to find something that might be able to be replicated elsewhere. There's a lot of sea life in the world in need of a lot of help."

Simon bit his lip slightly before nodding, sitting back in his chair. "Yeah, yeah. That makes sense," he acquiesced, sipping at the wine in the glass. "So when are you guys getting started?"

"Tomorrow," Maia replied immediately. "We'll need to get the lab set up and work out where to start, but hopefully we can make some dives towards the end of the week." 

That excitement bubbled up in Maia's chest again, as she remembered exactly what she was here to do. She'd get to actually go into the water, go and see what condition the reef was in. A real life coral reef, with all the things that called it home. She was glad they'd invented the waterproof camera, because she wanted to document every second of what she saw down there.

Huh. Maybe Magnus' videos weren't such a crazy idea after all. 

In truth, Maia would spend the entire six months under the waves if she could, but she knew there was work to do in the lab. Magnus specialised in chemistry, so they'd be collecting samples for analysis in the lab. Little bits of coral, water samples, whatever they could get without damaging the environment. Maia might even see if she could borrow a few fish for some study, assuming Luke had the facilities at the lab set up for housing some fish for her. She didn't see why he wouldn't - after all, the university had spent a lot of money of the lab on Idris. It should be able to handle whatever she and Magnus needed of it. It was small, sure, and had a fairly tiny staff. In fact, most of the staff were temporary, like her and Magnus - people who came for short projects and then left again when they were done.

She wondered how often visitors came through the area. Were her and Magnus a local attraction for the next six months? Or maybe this was something the locals were used to. Either way, it didn't really matter. Give her a lab and a boat, and Maia knew she'd be far happier here than she could have been in New York at that moment.

Simon pulled his phone out of his pocket, and after a moment he stood up, putting his glass aside. "Well, I should probably go and check in on my Mom. Thanks for dinner, Luke," Simon said. "You coming Clary?"

She nodded, and after a brief goodbye, the two of them had vanished into the night, with promises of returning soon. They shared an apartment further towards Alicante, since they didn't rely on the Lab in the same way Luke did. Luke slouched back into a chair on the deck, sighing. Maia smiled.

"They seem nice," she offered softly.

"Yeah, they're good kids. Still do their best to give me grey hair though."

"Ah, Luke. You've got nothing to worry about. You don't look a day past thirty five," Magnus reassured him, and Luke chuckled.

"Well, I appreciate the sentiment," Luke said, obviously a little gratified. The smile on his face lit up his eyes as he looked out towards the ocean. "We can go over all the setup tomorrow when you get to the lab, but we've got a couple of boats you can use to go out to the reef. You can get started whenever you like."

"Thanks, Luke."

“No problem,” he assured them. Maia sighed, stretching her legs out a little, looking out into the night. The first day of her journey had felt impossibly long. She’d travelled across an ocean in a day, found her new home and her new world. It was hard to believe it had been barely 24 hours since she’d boarded the plane in New York and set off on this adventure. But now she was here, Maia could hardly picture going back. She wanted to spend time in the lab, wanted to dive in the reef. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with Luke, and with Magnus. Not only could this trip be could for her career, but she had the chance to surround herself with good people. 

Having co-workers that cared made all the difference in the world sometimes. And from what Magnus had said on the beach, she knew he cared, at least on some level. She had Simon and Clary too, who whilst not knowing much about her work, seemed warm and friendly enough. They were a part of Luke’s family, which only made her want to know them too.

She was in the land of opportunity. If she was smart, she wouldn’t waste it.

She couldn’t.


	2. Day Six

Magnus broke the surface of the water just as Maia finished writing the last of her notes for the day. Her hair was still damp from the dive she’d taken earlier, but her clothes were feeling warm and dry thanks to the heat of the sun. It was like sitting under a radiator, the sun’s rays reflected off the surface of the water. It was a different kind of heat to the New York summers, where everything just felt swelteringly stuffy. The coast around Idris was warm, but it still somehow felt fresh, a soft breeze drifting off the waves as Maia sat on deck on the little yacht, waiting for Magnus to finish up his exploration for the day.

Putting a final sentence in her logs, Maia turned away from the laptop, walking over towards the swim deck. She offered Magnus a hand, taking some of the various bits of diving gear from him as he stripped them off. The camera he’d taken with him was lying on the deck, the diving mask already tossed aside as the fresh air rushed back into his system. The diving tanks were good for what they were, but there was always something vaguely stale and heady about pure oxygen from a metal canister. 

“Everything go okay?” Maia asked, and Magnus nodded, pushing his hair out of his eyes. 

“Yeah, fine. Got some good shots and everything,” Magnus told her with a slight smile. She picked up the camera from the deck, turning it in her hands for a moment. Magnus appeared to have things under control, so she headed back over to the little desk she’d been working at, grabbing her laptop. Sitting on the edge of the step down to the swim deck, she fished the memory card out of the camera, safely inserting it into the side of her laptop.

They were still in the early days of the project, so the two of them had both agreed that documentation was the best way to move forward. They’d spent a few solid days just setting up the lab and going over whatever Luke had available on site. There was a great marine habitat set up at the research lab, with space for a few fish to be studied, or treated when necessary. The lab was shared by Dot, who was a vet and marine biologist. If they found any fish or other sea life in need of some care and attention, they took them in, let them recover and then released them back into the reef where they belonged. The preservation of the vital ecosystem and hundreds of rare fish that made it their home was absolutely the first priority.

Maia couldn’t help but be impressed at how well everything seemed to work. It was a noble cause, and she loved it. This was exactly why she’d gone into Marine Biology. The oceans were fascinating. They knew so little about them, and yet humanity seemed to be trying to systematically destroy something that deserved to be preserved and saved. This was her chance to do something good, and maybe help keep reefs like this one alive for future generations. 

“See anything interesting?” Maia asked idly, waiting for the data to load onto her laptop. 

“Met a couple of Basking Sharks on the way back,” Magnus told her. Maia nodded, peering into the blue waters at the edge of the boat. She’d never seen so many different types of sea life before she came here. And to see them all wild and living free and actually where they were supposed to be, not in some tank in an aquarium… it was heartwarming. It was how things were supposed to be. Reefs and nature reserves like the Lyn Reef were disappearing all too quickly, which was they were so precious. And if they could do something about spreading a little of this magic somewhere else… well, all the better really.

Maia turned back to her laptop after a moment, clicking on the little icon for the camera footage, and dragging it to her computer hard drive. They couldn’t afford to lose a single image, not when it was all going to be valuable research moving forward. She was beginning to see what Magnus was getting at with filming everything. They had so much footage already. One day, she’d be thankful for it, she was sure. 

Magnus finished moving the oxygen tanks into the storage cupboard before moving beside her, wetsuit stripped off and pulled down to his waist. His chest was certainly something on display like that… the water was still rolling down him in steady drips, and from the build and definition of Magnus’ abs it was obvious he went to the gym. However, Maia found herself utterly relieved to have nothing but feelings of respect and admiration for the man. He was a brilliant scientist, who genuinely seemed to care about the work they were doing. He was a mentor, and she loved him for that and that only.

That said, she was mildly impressed that he found so much time to keep in shape amongst all the work they did. Her own fitness regime hadn’t exactly been the best. She’d also been taking quite a few acts of self care lately. Break up brownies had always seemed more attractive than going and doing a few dozen crunches in a loud, sweaty gym.

Maybe she should take up morning swims. The water was certainly perfect for it. She hadn't seen it rain since they’d arrived, and it was always warm. The water outside their little house was usually fairly calm, protected by the barrier of the reef out towards the ocean. It was beautiful. 

She was sure her hair wouldn’t thank her, but hey, she’d cope.

Magnus sat down beside her, and Maia shifted the laptop a little, tilting the screen in his direction so he could see the images that he’d taken on the camera. She opened up the gallery, skimming through the various pictures. It was incredible. There were plenty of tropical fish, things she’d only ever read about in books or seen in an aquarium. The reef also had plenty of shellfish, sea urchins and other types of life settled on it. The images were a rainbow of colour and life and it made Maia smile just looking at them. She already wanted to dive back in and take another look for herself. It was so beautiful. Life must be easier in the ocean. It certainly seemed a lot more peaceful, at the very least.

There were dozens of pictures, and she didn’t hesitate for very long on each one, instead skimming quickly to try and get an idea of what they were dealing with. There were plenty of detail shots, and then, at the end, a few wider angled ones, obviously taken on the way back to the little boat they were using. It was anchored a bit away from the reef, in order to try and not damage anything in that vital system. Human interference could be deadly, if not done with care and attention. Maia wasn’t up for accidentally destroying a whole species because they dropped their anchor somewhere they shouldn’t have. Instead it was buried in the soft sand, and whilst the boat drifted a little with the currents, it was a lot better than the alternative.

“Wait, go back,” Magnus said, gesturing to a spot on her screen that was now empty, just taken up by the blue ocean in the picture she was currently on. Shifting quickly, Maia pressed the opposite key, slowly scanning back to the last couple of pictures. After a moment, Magnus shifted his finger a little, pointing to an area of the picture. “There. What’s that?”

Maia tilted the screen back towards her, pulling it closer to examine the shot Magnus had taken. It was a beautiful picture, a section of the reef taken from maybe twenty or thirty feet back. The colours of the coral shone through in the sunlight that gently sifted down from the surface. There were a few smaller fish in the foreground of the picture, and a few details to be made out around the coral, where some fish still lurked. And there, right in the place Magnus had pointed out, was a giant blue fin. At least, Maia thought it was giant. Most of the fish in question was out of sight, hiding behind the coral reef. But the end of tail was obvious behind the pink and red of the reef, just visible thanks to the bounce of the sunshine. 

“I don’t know… it’s pretty far away. It looks pretty big though,” Maia said slowly, trying to reason out what it could be. “Are there dolphins out here?” 

“There could be, but that doesn’t look like a dolphin,” Magnus said, pointing out the curve of the tail. “The shape’s not quite right. And I think those are scales catching the light. We both know dolphins don’t look like that.”

Maia took a second look. It did look like scales, from the way the light reflected off the body of the thing in question. And it also looked beautifully, impossibly blue. Like a sapphire in the sunshine. It was almost easier to miss for it, the blue of the ocean helping to mask it a little. But the blue of the fins shone just a little brighter and a little deeper. It was definitely  _ something _ .

“What’s that big that would live out on the reef? A shark?” Magnus mused, almost to himself.

“That’s no more a shark than it is a dolphin,” Maia scoffed a little, shaking her head. It wasn’t as if she had any better ideas herself, but she knew what a shark looked like, and she knew Magnus did too. He’d seen them on the way back to the boat, and they were both familiar enough with such well known ocean life. There wasn’t much about that fin that looked like a shark, or a dolphin. In fact, it didn’t look like anything that Maia had ever seen before. 

“So what is it then?” Magnus asked. Maia sighed, shaking her head, eyes fixed on the part of the picture in question. 

“Trick of the light? Reflection from something?” Maia asked.

“Does that look like some photography trick to you?”

He had a point.

After a moment she shut the laptop, sending it to sleep before getting up. She picked the camera up from where it was on the deck, placing both safely back on the desk area. “I don’t know. But maybe Luke knows something. He’s more familiar with this place than we are,” Maia suggested. Luke had been out here for years. He did his own research, his own conservation projects. No one knew the waters around Idris better than Luke, apart from maybe those who relied on the ocean for their way of life. Fisherman, some locals maybe. But Maia  _ knew _ Luke. He was reasonable. He’d hardly call them crazy for asking the question. 

Magnus nodded in agreement, getting up from the swim deck. “Okay. Let’s get back to shore,” he suggested. After a moment he moved over to the anchor system on the back of the boat, triggering the motor to pull it free and bring it back up to the surface. Securing the few loose items on deck, Maia climbed the small set of stairs up to the controls. She waited for a moment before Magnus signalled they were all clear, starting up the engines and cutting through the water back towards shore.

In truth, Maia hadn’t always been great around boats. But ever since she’d decided to pursue Marine Biology as a career, she’d realised there were a few things she needed to know in order to get what she wanted. Diving had been the first thing she’d done, completing classes in New York as best as she could. She had enough dive time on her record to be trusted to go out alone, as did Magnus. It made things a lot easier for their trip, allowing them to double their efforts where they could. The second thing she’d done was taking sailing lessons on the Hudson. 

The environment couldn’t be more different, but the principles were the same. By the time Magnus had changed back into a pair of loose shorts and a white linen shirt, Maia was already approaching the little harbour near the Research Lab, safe and sound.

The docks were quiet, only a couple of other vessels moored there. One was the second research boat owned by the lab. The other was a smaller one, similar to the yacht they used for research trips. The smaller kinds of boats were much more adaptable for navigating the reef, and the shallower waters around the island. The main dock was around the other side of the island, at Alicante, but Maia had come to know the companion vessel at the Research docks quite well. 

As Magnus jumped onto the wooden pier to tie up the vessel, Maia cut the engines and stood up. There was someone sitting on the back of the boat, strumming a ukulele softly. She smiled to herself, shaking her head a little. A boy on a boat, playing a song as the tropical breeze drifted by? Could it get any more impossible? She was becoming more and more convinced this place really was paradise. There was something magical about it all, about her little house on the shore and the boat they had to take out to the gorgeous reef. Everything was so peaceful and idyllic and a thousand miles away from the life she’d known in New York. It was everything she could have hoped for. It was everything she needed right now, and she loved it. 

Mysterious fish aside, of course. Maia had never liked an unanswered question.

Packing her laptop and the camera into a backpack, Maia hitched it over her shoulder and jumped onto the docks, helping Magnus finish tying up the front of the boat to cut the chances of it drifting away. That would be a bit of a poor thanks, if they lost Luke’s boat in the ocean. 

“Oh, hey Maia, Magnus!” came a cheerful greeting from the neighbouring boat as the music stopped. 

“Hi, Simon,” Maia replied with a smile. Magnus waved before holding out his hand, offering to take the bag from Maia. 

“I’ll take the stuff to the lab, see if I can grab Luke?” he offered. “You can catch up when you’re ready.”

She considered it for a moment. She was technically working, and she should really just go up to the lab. But she was also technically going to be working for every day of the next six months of her life. She could afford to take breaks, especially if it was to make friends. She liked Simon. He seemed sweet, and knew the island pretty well. He’d been a fisherman ever since he arrived, as far as she could gather. Mostly going after shrimp and some of the smaller shellfish, but his knowledge of the tides and the best places in the reef for marine life had been valuable when they’d been setting out each day. He was always happy to help too and…

He knew the waters around Idris just as well as anyone.

“Sure, I’ll be there in five,” Maia replied gratefully, and Magnus nodded before walking off, his steps echoing on the wooden planks of the little pier they were on. Maia took a breath before wandering forward, closer to where Simon was. She could see him better now, he was reclined at an impossible angle on a deckchair, strumming the tiny instrument as he watched the world go by. Maia leaned on one of the posts nearby, listening for a moment. He was good. Actually  _ good _ , which was a little bit of a surprise to her. But then, she didn’t really know him that well, did she?

“I didn’t know you played,” Maia offered softly, and Simon looked over, smiling like the sun had just come out. He always seemed to look that way, joyus at the slightest little thing. Maia wished she could be like that, wished she was able to smile in the mornings just because the sun came up. Although she was beginning to feel that way. It was so beautiful in Idris it was hard not to, but in New York… lately she’d just been waking up with a pit of loneliness and dread in her stomach. It had felt like her world was falling apart around her, and the only thing she had left to cling to was her work.

At least here, her life was literally about her work. It was why she was here. She was here to swim in the ocean and meet some pretty fish and hopefully learn how to preserve a little piece of it for the future. She was here with a purpose, and everything that had been weighing on down on her had been left behind in New York. She hadn’t felt this free in a long time.

“Oh yeah,” Simon commented, fingers still idly dancing across the strings. “I started out on guitar actually. Used to have a band when I was in New York. Then uh… I think I made a joke to Clary about how I should probably be playing something more tropical island appropriate? So she bought me this,” he explained. That was another thing about Simon. He was so… free with his past. Maia didn’t think she’d mentioned anything personal to anyone outside of maybe Magnus and Luke since she’d gotten here. It wasn’t her style. She had never been one to spill her soul. But Simon was so honest and genuine, it was hard not to like. 

“You sit on your boat and play often?” Maia asked with a smile. 

“Oh, nah. But I gave myself the afternoon off and I’m waiting for Clary to come by. She’s heading into town with Luke and I tonight,” Simon explained. “Oh, actually, you should come!”

Maia blinked momentarily, her brain processing the information she’d just heard. It didn’t help any.

“What?”

“Oh, uh, well, you know how I used to play in a band? I started doing a bit more solo stuff since I got here. Most of the bars and stuff are in Alicante, but I’m doing this set at a place called the Hunter’s Moon tonight. You should come along, we’ve got room in the car,” Simon explained excitedly before seeming to restrain himself. He shrugged, eyes dropping in an attempt to hide his excitement. “You know, if you want, it’s cool.”

Maia exhaled a little, shaking her head. She wanted to accept his offer. She hadn’t been to a bar in a long time, hadn’t even really allowed herself to have fun in a while. And really, nothing sounded better than sitting at a table with Clary and Luke, getting tipsy on a few beers and listening to Simon play. But she’d heard offers like this before from men back on campus, and she knew that ‘go for drinks’ or ‘come to my set’ always came with the weight of an expectation of something else. 

And Maia wasn’t ready for something else. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready for something else. Maybe Jordan hadn’t been perfect, but since they’d broken up, she’d realised her first love was always going to be her work. A part of her heart belonged to the ocean, and it always had. She wasn’t ready to get involved with someone who couldn’t understand that, who couldn’t cope with that fact that they might not always be her number one priority. 

Jordan had been a terrible boyfriend for a whole bunch of reasons, but he’d never been able to cope with her loving her work more than she loved him. But then, she’d never really loved him, had she? The more she looked back, the more she thought she’d dated him as an obligation. He’d been cute enough, and her friends at the time had all said so. She’d been single, and he’d been nice on the face of things, and she had figured it was about time she dated  _ someone _ , right?

And look where that had gotten her. 

The short of it was she was here for her work, and she absolutely wasn’t on Idris to have some sort of casual relationship with one of the few friends she had. She’d never really been into casual sex anyway. She wanted to fall in love. She wanted a fairytale, she wanted someone to whisk her off her feet like she was in some sort of magical story where everything ended with a ‘happily ever after’. But life just didn’t work like that. It had taught her that from the moment she’d been old enough to understand that her parents were always disappointed in her, and that no one would ever see her for who she was unless she fought for it. 

‘Happily ever after’ was a dream, a child’s fantasy. It existed in Disney movies. But her life wasn’t a Disney movie. There wasn’t anyone waiting to rescue her. Besides, Maia didn’t even think she wanted to be rescued. At the very least, she wanted to do an equal amount of rescuing.

“Look, Simon…” Maia started softly, her voice sinking, and she could see Simon immediately start to droop down in his deck chair a little.

“You don’t want to. It’s cool, it’s fine, I know you’re busy, you must have a lot to do and -”

“Wait! Simon,” Maia cut in a little desperately. She hated letting people into her personal life, and she’d never been the type to overshare. But something about the boy in front of her made her want to at least be upfront with him about what was going on. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, and she couldn’t bear the thought of jeopardizing one of the few friendships she had managed to make since arriving. “It’s not… I mean, I’d love to, but I just got out of this relationship and-”

“Oh! You think- Ah, well…” Simon started. His fingers had finally stilled on the ukulele, and he reached up, nervously scratching the back of his head. “I mean, you’re like… amazing and everything and I definitely don’t want you to be mad or anything but I wasn’t actually… I mean I just thought it’d be fun for uh…”

“You mean… like… as friends?” Maia asked cautiously. Simon perked up, pointing at her wildly, like he’d never heard the word before. 

“Yes! Exactly. Friends. Like a friend date? If that’s cool. Like I was gonna ask if Magnus wanted to come too and I don’t wanna date  _ him _ . Not that he’s not like…. incredibly attractive and suave and he’s got that whole classic movie pretty person emerging from the ocean onto a beach vibe but like…. super intimidating,” Simon babbled on. Maia resisted a smile, biting the inside of her lip. He was sweet. 

“Too much like an adult for us?” Maia suggested, and Simon nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes! Exactly! It’s like the guy is four hundred or something, it’s  _ insane _ . Like… you don’t wanna date that, you just want to sit and listen to him explain how coral gets its colours,” Simon explained. Maia laughed a little, but didn’t object. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what he meant.

They paused for a moment, taking a beat as the waves lapped against the side of the boat. Simon strummed the strings of his ukelele again briefly, as if to check the tuning before looking back up at Maia. 

“So uh… friends?” he offered, almost shyly.

“Yeah,” Maia agreed without hesitation. “I’d like that a lot,” she said, and was almost surprised to find she meant it. It had been so long since she’d actually  _ wanted _ to go out. But then, if she’d been going out in New York it had always been with Jordan, other than the odd coffee with Bat, so…

“Cool! That is incredible, and I will let Clary know. Do you need much longer at the lab? I think she’s coming in an hour or so, so I can get set up before the gig. We were gonna grab some food and stuff, if you want to join us?”

“No, we’re mostly done. Just have some pictures to get stashed. I did all my notes on the boat,” Maia explained briefly. It was only as she mentioned the pictures that she remembered why she’d wanted to talk to Simon in the first place. She’d gotten sidetracked. That was… something of a new feeling for her too.

Maybe this place was good for her.

“Hey, you know the reef pretty well, right?” Maia asked, almost conversationally. Simon seemed to get the intensity of her conversation and perked up, setting the ukulele aside. He got up off the deck chair and moved towards the side of the boat, leaning over it. 

“Yeah, at this point. Why?”

“You ever seen anything odd out there?”

“Odd… how?” Simon asked. Maia swallowed, trying to think about how best to phrase it. Luke she knew wouldn’t make fun of her for asking. Simon… Simon was an unknown. But somehow, she trusted him. He’d been around Luke for a long time, from what she could gather. It was probably half coincidence they hadn’t met years ago, back in New York. If he was used to Luke rambling about his work, then surely he’d be able to not laugh at anything she had to ask, right?

“We got a picture of something out in the reef. Just a tail, but it was blue and uh… pretty big,” Maia explained, not wanting to get too technical on him. Simon coughed a little before clearing his throat, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Yeah? Sounds like a dolphin or something to me, you know there was this pod came by last summer, maybe they’re still about and got closer to the reef somehow.”

“It didn’t look much like a dolphin. Or a shark. We thought of those. It was pretty big, but still looked like it had some sort of distinct scales, like you’d see on a much smaller fish. Like a tuna? I think we got lucky that the picture caught the light at the right angle to show it up.”

The more Maia thought about it, the more it didn’t make any sense. What she’d seen in that picture looked like it belonged to something much, much smaller. But it was so big, and so far away. If it hadn’t been half hidden by the reef, Maia would have called it a perspective trick by the lens. But it  _ had _ been behind the reef, which meant the only explanation for its size in the picture was that it was really just that big. Easily as big as a dolphin, or a person, really. 

At this rate, the only realistic option left was that they’d accidentally stumbled across some new species of fish. And for their first week at work, that seemed unbelievable. It wasn’t as if they were at the depths of the ocean. To think there was something living just off the shore, that no one had ever seen before… It was unlikely, almost impossible. For something so big, how would no one have ever noticed? Surely Simon would have seen it. Or Luke. Luke had been studying the reef for so long - was there really something so big lurking out there that he’d never seen?

Unless it had been hiding. But that seemed a little fanciful. And besides, if it had been hiding until now, how had Magnus managed to get a picture of it?

“Yep, that sounds uh… pretty interesting. And I’ve definitely never seen anything like that out there. Just a bunch of shrimp and you know. Normal fish. Fish that are normal and that I catch in the net and take to market. I mean, you know, I barely even see the fun stuff. Not that there is any fun stuff! Other than you know, the really cool tropical fish, they're fun. And if there is I usually give it to Luke so you should uh… ask him?” Simon rambled a little, but Maia smiled and nodded. 

“Yeah, okay. I think Magnus was going to,” she told him. It was fine. Luke would know,  but Simon had been worth the ask. At least she had evening plans now. That was definitely a plus. “I should probably catch up with him,” she offered after a moment, looking over her shoulder at the lab. She didn’t know how long it had been, but she should probably go and check out what Magnus had discovered, as well as settle all their research for the day. 

“Oh, yeah, sure. Don’t let me stop you,” Simon offered, waving her away good naturedly. Maia smiled at him, pushing herself off the post she’d been leaning against. 

“I’ll see you later, then? For the gig?”

“Yep! Absolutely,” Simon replied, back to his normal chipper self. She nodded, waving before walking down the docks. She might not have any more answers, but at least she had a friend, and an evening plan that wasn’t sitting pouring over her notes. She was excited at thought, which was enough to make her ignore the mystery of it all, or the slightly nervous edge to the way Simon had babbled out answers to her questions. 

As she walked up the path to the lab, she couldn’t help but peer over her shoulder. She could have sworn she saw Simon standing at the edge of his boat closest to the ocean, and hurl something off the edge and into the bay. 

But that didn’t make any sense either, right? Unless it was a fish he’d found lying around somewhere in a cooler. Shaking it off, Maia focused her attention back on the lab, getting back to work. She had enough problems to solve without creating more. And finally she felt like she had something to look forward to.


	3. Day Twenty Four

It was a Sunday, which meant Maia had absolutely no work responsibilities for the day. Whilst she knew that both Magnus and herself were so driven they’d probably work every minute of every day if they could, they had mutually agreed to take at least one day off a week. No dives, no research, no notes. Just a day to themselves to do whatever it was they wanted. Magnus had ended up suggesting Sunday - apparently it was a good day for him to make a few Skype calls. He made a regular call to his friends Ragnor and Raphael in London, every Sunday at lunchtime.  Later in the evening, he’d catch up with his other friend Catarina back in New York. She worked as a nurse, so the time tended to be a little less regular depending on her shifts. From the way Magnus spoke about them when they came up, she knew that they were like family to him. They held a deep affection for each other, and even an idiot could see that.

Part of Maia jealously wished she had someone to call like that. She spoke to Bat on and off, but he was busy with his exams and she didn’t want to distract him too much. There was no one else for her to call. There was no way in hell she was calling her parents, and her friends, well….

Most of them were on Idris. It was a little depressing to think about. There was no one waiting for her at home. No one other than Bat.

Rather that sit in her room and listen to Magnus make his calls through the thin walls of their house, Maia had made the bold decision to go out. It was a short trip back to Alicante, where she’d parked her borrowed car outside the local postal office and then headed down towards the beach. The sun was warm on her skin, the tropical breeze blowing through her hair. It was a perfect day, the kind of day that photographers would put on the cover of a travel magazine or a vacation brochure. Part of her still couldn’t get over just how good everything looked. It felt like a fantasy, something she'd imagined in her head. 

Looking out at the blue of the ocean, it was hard not to think it was a dream. She’d been on Idris for more than three weeks and it still felt a little surreal. But her new life was turning out to be far more therapeutic than the one she’d left behind in the city. It felt a bit strange to think about like that, since she was fairly sure she was working far more on Idris than she ever had back in New York. But it didn’t feel like work. Going out into the ocean, swimming along the reef, sitting in the lab and studying what she’d found… it didn’t really feel like work the way writing one of her term papers did, or doing her assigned reading. It felt  _ fun _ . 

That was the best sign Maia had received in years that she was doing the right thing. Her parents had never understood her fascination with research. They always asked why she wouldn’t go out and get a ‘real job’, instead of doing bar shifts to try and cover her rent. But this was what she loved. And well… her parents hadn’t really tried to understand her for years. At least on Idris she was surrounded by people who appreciated her and her work. Luke and Magnus completely understood what she was doing. And Simon and Clary… well, they’d turned out to be better friends than she might have hoped for.

Clary was perhaps the most impressive when it came to multitasking. She wanted to be an artist, and would happily tell anyone who stopped long enough to listen. She had plenty of paintings of the island and the various creatures on it, some of which she displayed locally and managed to sell. But Clary had explained that the art didn’t pay enough of her bills, so she did some extra work as a lifeguard on the beach at Alicante. Despite not being too much of a tourist trap, the beach was still popular enough in the high season to warrant have some sort of attendance. The waves could be fierce, fierce enough to catch even the most experience of swimmers and surfers off guard, or so Clary had explained. Maia had been sure to take note of the warning when she did go out into the ocean, which was becoming more and more regular by the day. There was nothing quite like waking yourself up by diving straight into saltwater.

Looking around the beach, Maia wondered if Clary was on duty that day. It was getting closer and closer to high season, and the redhead had mentioned that she would start picking up some work again soon. And from the eye-catching shock of bright sunset red hair out in the ocean, Maia guessed she at least had some reason to be out on the water. She was a fair distance out from the shore but close enough that Maia could make out the figure of a second person in the water. Clary was sitting comfortably on a surfboard, legs hidden in the surf as the other person leaned on the edge of it. The only thing that was visible of them was their dark hair, since most of their body was hidden beneath the waves. The two of them looked like they were the only people out there right now, although Maia was far from the only person walking the beach.

Just as Maia was trying to decide whether it was more rude to not say hello, or to interrupt Clary and her friend, there was an excited bark from behind her, and a cry of ‘Valkie, no!’ before something big, wet and heavy collided with the back of her knees. Maia stumbled for a moment, stepping forward as she made her best effort to catch her balance and stop herself going sprawling face first into the sand. Managing it by sheer force of will, Maia didn't really have to turn around to see the enthusiastic Sheltie bouncing around her ankles, panting happily with its tail wagging. The dog in question was more than a little damp from the ocean, but it didn't stop Maia from crouching down in the sand and reaching out to scratch the bouncing dog behind the ears, laughing as it then moved in for what was either a cuddle or a kiss.

“I am  _ so  _ sorry,” a lady said empathetically, breathing heavily as she skidded to a stop next to Maia. She looked exhausted, and Maia couldn't help but continue petting her rather excitable dog in the meantime. “I walk Valkie down here all the time but she doesn't normally run off like that. Are you okay?” 

“Oh, yeah I'm fine. I think Valkie just wanted to say hi, isn't that right?” Maia explained, turning back to the dog and giving it one last pat before pulling herself to her feet. Valkie bounced off, seemingly undecided who was more fun to bother - her owner or Maia.

“Well, I suppose I should take it as a good thing she only wanted someone to play with. I don't know why I wasn't good enough but…” the woman sighed, shaking her head a little. “Thank you for being so kind. I'm Gretel, by the way,” the woman offered after a moment. 

“Maia,” she returned easily, and the other woman smiled.

“You're new here, right?” Gretel asked, and Maia couldn't help but smile a little nervously.

“What gave it away?” Gretel laughed, waving her off.

“No, nothing like that. I work as a nurse in town. I see pretty much everyone at some point,” she explained briefly. “You should come by if you're free one day. We could go grab coffee.”

Maia blinked. The kindness of strangers was still something she was getting used to on this island. Not only did everyone know everyone, but everyone seemed willing to  _ help _ everyone else. These kinds of wild displays of human kindness were a little unfamiliar to her. But Gretel seemed nice, and Maia found herself actually wanting to take her up on the offer of coffee, strangely enough. 

Maybe she was really changing. Back in New York all she'd wanted to do was work, when she wasn't with her boyfriend or Bat. Sometimes even when she was  _ with  _ her boyfriend she'd wished she was working. But now… somehow it was easier to relax out here, and letting go was effortless.

“I'd like that,” Maia replied honestly with a soft smile. Gretel beamed, and Maia swore her heart skipped a beat. She was beautiful. And obviously had a very sweet dog too. 

“Great! Well, I need to get this rascal home, but I'll see you around,” Gretel told her confidently, and Maia nodded. As Gretel called to her dog, Valkie obediently fell in at Gretel's heel. She seemed like a lovely dog, truly. And in some ways, she was almost glad for her. It was Valkie's fault that she might have a new friend, after all.

“Hey Maia!”

At the sound of her name Maia turned, blinking as she saw Clary emerging from the surf, surfboard under her arm. What she'd been doing before Valkie and Gretel had come to introduce herself came rushing back, and Maia smiled gently, a little relieved that decision about whether to say hi had been made for her. She'd hate to disturb Clary at work, but hey, if she was the one offering…

“Hi, Clary,” Maia replied easily. Clary propped her surfboard up in the sand, brushing her soaked hair out of her face. Maia had no idea how Clary somehow managed to look even more beautiful than usual when she was fresh out the ocean. Whenever Maia went for a swim, she just looked like a wet mess afterwards.

“You met Gretel then? She's nice,” Clary offered. Maia nodded, glancing over her shoulder in the direction Gretel had jogged off down the shore. Remembering what had been going on, Maia looked back to Clary and then out into the ocean. It was empty.

That was weird, right? There'd definitely been another person with Clary out there. There was no way they could have disappeared into the surf, and Maia didn't see anyone on the beach who looked like they been in for a swim, other than Clary. The ocean view was also wide enough that there was no way the person could have swum out of sight in such a short time… right?

“Where did your friend go?” Maia asked after a moment, glancing around in case she'd missed something glaringly obvious. But no, there was no mystery person hiding in the sand, as far as she could see.

“What friend?” Clary asked, a tiny frown forming between her eyebrows. Maia blinked, looking at her for a moment and then back out at the ocean. Was there a rock or something out there? But even that didn't make much sense. Maia wasn't blind enough to mistake a rock for a  _ person _ . That was definitely a person she'd seen, propped up against the end of Clary's board in the waves. She wasn't crazy. Was she?

“There was… I thought I saw you with someone a minute ago. Dark hair…” Maia started, trying to come up with a reasonable description of the person before realising all she had was dark hair. She hadn't even really seen their face, not that it would have helped much from such a distance. 

“Are you sure? It was just me out there,” Clary told her. “I just try and keep out on the coast a little if I'm on patrol. You know, instead of sitting in the guard tower all day,” Clary explained. “It's a pretty quiet day though. Not much lifeguarding to do.”

Maia blinked, looking between Clary, her surfboard and the ocean. The water was the same clear crystal blue it had been since the day Maia had arrived, and there wasn't much there that could be mistaken for a whole person. Maybe some seaweed? But that didn't really add up. Nothing did.

Maybe the heat was getting to her brain. 

Rather than pursue the matter and make herself look like a total idiot in front of Clary, Maia shook her head a little and refocused her attention on the girl in front of her. Clary smiled politely, hand lingering on her surfboard. “You okay?” she asked after a moment and Maia sighed, nodding.

“Yeah. Yeah I'm fine,” Maia reassured her.

Something didn’t quite add up, when she thought about it. Why would Clary hide it, if she had been talking to a friend out in the ocean? And even if she  _ was _ hiding her friend somewhere in the sea, where on earth could the person have gone? It was just open water out there, and Maia couldn't see anyone out there at that moment. Nothing really added up.

But rather than press the issue, Maia took a deep breath and smiled.

"Want me to grab us some iced tea? Or do you need to work?"

"I could keep an eye on things with tea. Thanks," Clary offered chirpily, smiling. 

Mystery could wait. For now, Maia just wanted a friend. And lucky for her, she had one.


	4. Day Thirty Nine

The sun was just beginning to turn the sky the colour of a burning flame when Maia’s phone buzzed violently on the hard wooden decking of their balcony. It was a beautiful evening, although Maia was beginning to wonder if Idris really knew what bad weather was. There’d been a few rain storms since they’d arrived, during which they’d mostly been forced to stay inside and work in the lab. But those days had been few and far between, and most of the time the island just felt like a postcard. And to think, it wasn’t even the peak of summer yet. It was starting to get that way, to be far, as April had bled into May and suddenly Maia had turned the pages in her calendar in what felt like no time at all. But she was loving the island so much it hardly even mattered how long she’d been there.

The evening in question was a pleasant one, pleasant enough that she’d chosen to relax in one of the wooden deck chairs on the porch instead of staying indoors. Magnus was inside somewhere, chatting on the phone to Raphael. Apparently they were planning a birthday surprise for Ragnor, since Magnus wouldn’t be able to make it out to London in person. Maia had already told Magnus he was more than welcome to take a few days away from the island if he wanted. She might not have much in the way of family to go home to, but that shouldn’t stop Magnus from going. He’d just shaken his head and told her London was a long way to go for a short visit, and that the work they were doing here was too important. 

If she’d secretly started looking into what hotels were available in Alicante and other nearby towns, she absolutely wasn’t about to mention it. In truth, it was partly selfish. Bat had expressed some interest in coming out to visit her - he was graduating from university very soon, and had told her that his career prospects weren’t exactly looking amazing at that moment in time. Bat loved New York too much to even consider expanding the net, and the truth was that the job market was just too competitive these days. Maia didn’t even want to consider what she’d be doing after she finished her thesis. After all, if everything went well with this project and the paper were completed…. then she’d be done. And what then? A struggle to get a place at another university, or to get tenure? Did she wanted to be a tutor or a lecturer? Was she going to have a choice if she wanted to pay the bills for her apartment in Brooklyn?   
Those were the kinds of questions Maia liked to avoid thinking about as much as she could. Instead, she breathed in the night air and attempted to just let it all go. She’d been on Idris for a little over a month in total. There was time to worry about that later. She wasn’t going anywhere until the end of the summer, when she’d be due back in New York to complete her thesis and hopefully get her doctorate. But even that felt miles away right now. 

At least, until her phone rang. 

Maia answered it almost on autopilot, expecting to hear from Bat. He’d been doing his prep for exams, and she knew that when he overstudied he tended to stress out. She’d been receiving a few anxious texts and pictures lately, so she’d thought that he’d finally cracked and called her to get her to talk him down. It used to be part of their ritual when she was back in the city. Whilst they hadn’t gone into the same area of study, they'd been students for long enough that their study tips could apply no matter what you were doing. That and you didn’t necessarily need to share subjects to be a good study buddy. Maia spent most of her time with Bat convincing him that no one was going to mark down his handwriting, phrasing or poor grammar. She also did some marking of his practice papers, since he was paranoid about being biased.

To be fair, Bat was paranoid about a lot when it came to his studies, but he’d been the first from his whole family to make it into any sort of college. It was a big deal for him, and he put a lot of pressure on himself because of it. It was admirable. It certainly didn’t come from his parents - Maia had met his mother, and she was quite the lovely woman. 

Unlike her own parents.

“Hello?” Maia answered, watching as a bird landed on the rails of the porch, hopping about curiously. 

“Maia, babe.”

Maia felt a chill run down her spine, despite the warmth of the evening. She knew that voice. She knew that voice all too well, which was exactly why she’d left it behind in New York. She’d left a lot behind in New York, where it was supposed to stay. It wasn’t supposed to come at her, thousands of miles and an ocean away. She was supposed to be  _ safe _ here. Safe from everything that could hurt her. 

And she was, she reminded herself. She was totally safe. No one could reach her here. Besides, Magnus was just inside. There was no one else here. Just her, Magnus, the birds and the trees and her phone.

And Jordan.

She almost wanted to hang up on the spot, knowing full well that if she’d bothered to look at her caller id before she’d answered, she never would have accepted the call. But it was too late for that sort of regret now, and instead she needed to just deal with the situation before it got out of hand. 

“What do you want, Jordan?” Maia said, her voice going dead of all emotion. She couldn’t get invested in all this again, invested into  _ him _ . She’d let him go, and for good reason. Their relationship had never been good, but at the end it had been… something she absolutely needed to get out of. They never would have worked out. Maia was far too independent and strong willed to be the kind of girl that Jordan needed. Maia wasn’t honestly sure if the kind of girl that Jordan needed really existed. Maybe she did, in poorly written books and TV where girls were happy to fall over themselves to please their partner, where they had nothing in the way of independent thought or feeling. But this was the real world.

Either way, Maia wasn’t the girl who was going to sit at home and modify her actions because something might upset her boyfriend. So she’d ended it, after what had been far too long when she thought about it. She’d spent so many months convincing herself that things would get better, that they could talk things through, that they could somehow compromise on it all. But she’d been an idiot. 

And then she’d left New York. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she was a coward. She had run away, after all. She’d fled for the hills at the first chance to be out of the city, and to remove all opportunity for Jordan to ‘accidentally’ bump into her. She hadn’t been willing to face him, not until he’d had time to process the fact that she wasn’t coming back. When Bat had told her he was dating someone else, she’d assumed that had meant Jordan had successfully moved on, and breathed a small sigh of relief around the pain and heartache in her chest. 

Maybe she’d been wrong, though. Maybe it was a lot harder to spot a rebound on the internet. Not that it mattered to her. She didn’t want anything to do with Jordan Kyle anymore, which was why she absolutely didn’t want to be talking to him. She fought the urge to hang up on him on the spot, but that would probably just make him angry and well… she’d seen his temper first hand. She didn’t know what he’d do. She didn’t want to find out, either.

“Maia,” he drawled down the line, making the last syllable of her name last an eternity as he slurred his words together a little. “Maia, where are you?”

She stopped for a minute, listening. It was hard to make out, but she could hear the chatter of other voices in the background, along with music. It was dull, so he probably wasn’t in a club or a bar. But maybe outside the door then, or in the foyer. Or the bathroom. She didn’t know which was worse to think about. He sounded drunk. Drunk enough that he’d forgotten where she was - that was fine by her, she didn’t really want to remind him. She didn’t trust him not to immediately buy tickets to Alicante, and the absolute last thing she wanted was Jordan Kyle showing up on her damn doorstep  _ here _ . She owed Magnus better than that, and Luke. She owed  _ herself _ better than that.

“I’m away, Jordan. On research. What do you want?” she asked again, trying to be patient. But that was no mean feat when she had so little patience for effectively being drunk dialled by her ex in the first place. She’d let go of Jordan, and she wanted him out of her life. She couldn’t handle being called and pestered and reminded of him every few weeks for the rest of her life. She just… couldn’t. If it wasn’t him, it was her social media, or her parents, or some other mutual acquaintance. Was there anyone she knew that didn’t know Jordan? Even Bat knew about him. He was impossible to escape. 

“I miss you babe. You should come home, we could get back together. I miss you,” he said down the line. “I’m sorry, but it’s okay. I’ll forgive you. We can get back together.”

“You’ll forgive  _ me? _ ” Maia blurted out, unable to help herself. She got to her feet, phone pressed to her ear as she paced the porch with a nervous energy she could hardly contain. She wasn’t just exhausted anymore, she was _ angry _ . What had she done that needed to be forgiven? And somehow, Jordan had it in his head he’d be doing her a  _ favour _ if he let her back into his life?

“I know you just went away because you didn’t want to see Becky and I together,” Jordan explained like it was the simplest and most reasonable explanation. “I know you were just tryin to make me miss you when you told me you were going. And I do. I miss you babe, I miss you so much and I appreciate you so much now so you can come back now.”

“Jordan, I’m not coming back. We broke up,” Maia said firmly.

“Yeah, but it was just because you weren’t feeling appreciated and-”

“ _ No _ , it wasn’t,” Maia cut across him. “Why the hell would you think that?” 

To be fair, it wasn’t as if Maia had presented him with a bullet pointed list of all the reasons she was dumping him when she had. Yes, she had felt underappreciated, but it wasn’t just that. She knew plenty of people that felt underappreciated in their relationships and yet tolerated it. They stayed married for  _ decades _ feeling underappreciated, and Maia told herself if it had just been that then maybe she could have stayed, could have stuck it out. After all, you didn’t give up on a relationship without good reason, right? But it had never just been about that with Jordan. The more time her studies took up, the less he approved, especially as time wore on. He didn’t think she should be getting a PhD, didn’t think she should be working so hard, didn’t think she should be spending so much time in the lab with Magnus… the list went on.

Things had been good once. She reminded herself of that constantly, when she tried to map out what had happened and what went wrong, tried to work out if she could have changed anything. Jordan had been nice when they met. He’d been sweet and kind and he’d genuinely seemed to care about her. But then things had changed. It was slow, like water heating up around a frog. Maybe if the change had been sudden she would have noticed sooner, but by the time she realised just what kind of person Jordan was, it was too late. He’d been trying to police her behaviour, who she saw, what she did. By the end it had been a long list of microaggressions and mild abuse that had started to wear her down. And then she’d met Magnus, and she’d realised that she really shouldn’t have to stand for it.

She’d never told Magnus exactly what he’d done for her. But they’d gone out for drinks one night - a celebration for a colleague leaving the department. He’d gotten a few too many shots down him and mentioned one of his exes, Camille. How she’d started off nice, and then started to police what he wore or how he acted. After he mentioned that, Maia couldn’t help but examine her own life and well… things had been hauntingly close. She’d asked Jordan about it, of course. Told him to stop worrying about her work, to stop fussing so much.

But Jordan was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to change. And so she’d ended it. And that was the end of it all. Or so she’d thought.

“That’s what it was, though? A test? That’s why I went and found Becky, to make you jealou-”

“Jordan, stop,” Maia said. She’d been worried about making him angry, but he was a whole ocean away. She couldn’t let this go on, couldn’t let this crazy idea he had in his head continue to fester. That was assuming that he remembered any of his conversation in the morning, of course, but he didn’t sound  _ that  _ drunk. Not yet, anyway. “It wasn’t a test, or a trick. We broke up. And we are never,  _ ever  _ getting back together. Move on.”

“Maia…” he started, simpering down the phone like a small child who’d just lost his favourite toy. Maia made a disgusted noise.

“No, Jordan. Enough. I can’t be any clearer about this, okay? We’re done. Go out with as many Beckys as you want. I don’t care.” 

There was a beat of silence during which all Maia could hear was the background noise from the phone. There was the sound of laughter, and dance music with a deep, heavy beat ringing in her ears. She was sure that there was something else she could be thinking about, but all she could picture was Jordan in that stupid leather jacket of his, and the ripped jeans he thought looked cool that practically exposed half of his ass to the world. He was probably standing in some dingy, dank corner of the club that was only used for moments such as this.

“You  _ bitch _ ,” he hissed down the line. “You think you can do this to me? You can’t just get up and  _ leave _ . Is this because of that guy? What did he tell you? I’ll kill him, I swear to God. If he so much as  _ touched  _ you-” Jordan started to rant. Maia half wondered if Jordan was talking about Magnus or Bat, but she didn’t really care to enquire. 

“You don’t own me, Jordan Kyle. So you don’t get to do anything. We’re done.”

“You’ll be sorry. You’ll come crawling back to me, begging me to take you back in a few months.”

“No. I won’t. Goodbye, Jordan.”

Before he could utter another word, Maia pulled the phone away from her ear. She could hear him ranting in the brief moment it took her to hit the end call button. Her fingers were trembling slightly as she tapped the screen of her phone. The first thing she did was block Jordan’s number - she couldn’t have him calling her again. She didn’t  _ want  _ him to call her again, frankly. Then she couldn’t help but push her phone onto do not disturb. She could feel the adrenaline rushing through her veins, and the absolute last thing she wanted to do was talk to anyone else. She didn’t want to deal with it. Not even Bat or Simon or Clary. Especially not Magnus.

Maia took a trembling breath in, trying to steady herself. She didn’t even really know why she was so shaken. Jordan was miles away. He couldn’t hurt her. He had nothing to hurt her with. She wasn’t there, and there was nothing he could do other than shout at her down the phone and sent her stupid messages. She was safe. But none of that stopped the instinctive fight or flight instinct she could feel settling in her bones. She hated it. She hated that one boy could make her feel this way, even when he was so far away. She hated that she still had this reaction, that she couldn’t help how unnerved he made her feel.

She’d come dangerously close to losing herself in that relationship, and just how close she’d come to rolling over and letting herself become someone she wasn’t… it was horrifying. If she’d never met Magnus, if she’d never gotten that lab post, if they’d never gone to that party, if they’d never gotten the Idris project together… 

Magnus had no idea how much she owed him, and Maia didn’t exactly plan on telling him any time soon. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how to express that kind of emotion. Was there even a good time to tell someone you owed them your entire life? Everything would have been so different if she didn’t have people like Magnus in her life. And here, on Idris, she was surrounded by people who cared about her. Luke, Simon, Clary…. some of her new friends had been so kind already. Gretel, the girl she’d met on the beach, had been incredibly sweet. This was a good place for her, so much better than New York had ever been. 

She couldn’t imagine going back. That alone was terrifying. Maia had spent her whole life in the Tri-state area. She’d hardly gone any distance at all. Now that she was out, that she was free… she couldn’t picture going back. But she’d have to. She had a thesis to do, a degree to get… a job, a life. Everything for her was back in the city. This was a vacation. A beautiful, idyllic vacation that simply couldn’t last. It was a dream to be able to work here at all, but that was the thing about dreams. They were temporary. Eventually you had to wake up. She couldn’t stay here forever, and going back…. it was going to be tough.

But she had months left. And she planned on making the most of every single moment of them. 

Drumming her phone between her fingers briefly, Maia turned, pushing the door open and abandoning her phone on the coffee table. Magnus was sitting on the couch on his laptop, tapping away at the keyboard. He glanced up as she walked in, concern etched into the lines of his face. She wondered how much he’d heard of the conversation. The walls weren’t exactly made of concrete out here, and they kept the windows open for circulation a lot, since the air conditioning units were off. He’d probably heard… well, a lot. From the look in his eyes, whatever it had been was enough to make him worry.

“Everything okay?” Magnus asked, and Maia nodded. She barely even broke step, heading for her room.

“Just going to head out for a swim.”

“This late?” Magnus asked. It wasn’t particularly late - the sun was setting, true, but it was still daylight and still would be for another hour or so. Perhaps it was late more from the point of view that Maia tended to go for her swims in the morning, before they headed out to the lab. There was nothing more therapeutic to her than letting herself float in the ocean, especially in a place like this.

She needed therapeutic right now. There was no way she’d be sleeping tonight unless she went out and did something, and going out for a swim sounded a hell of a lot more enticing than going for a run down the beach. 

“I won’t be long,” Maia promised regardless, well aware of what Magnus was worried about. She didn’t much fancy getting lost out at sea in the dark either. But she knew her way home well enough at this point. She’d be fine.

Magnus looked like he was considering protesting, but then seemed to think better of it, relenting and settling back into his chair. “Okay. Stay safe,” he said, and Maia smiled softly.

“Always,” she told him, and tried not to think about how the words betrayed just how much affection he had for her. In all honesty, the feelings were returned. There was something about living with a person that could either make or break a relationship. Maia had known girls in her class who’d been perfectly good friends for years until they’d decided to be roommates, and within the space of about three months, the two girls in question had been unable to stand each other. Maia was happy to say that wasn’t the case for her and Magnus. They’d found their own harmony and their own rhythm, and it was something to be proud of. Rather than make things worse, they were doing better than ever. Maia didn’t think she’d ever had a friend like Magnus, which was why she could tell he wanted to ask about her phone call.

But he wouldn’t. Not yet. Not until she’d had time to process it.

Which was exactly what she was trying to do no less than ten minutes later, as she dove into the cooling ocean waves, and tried to drown all thoughts of Jordan Kyle out of her mind. 

The water looked gorgeous under the evening sun, the waves rolling into shore even as Maia pushed in the opposite direction, cutting through the surf and out into deeper water. She didn’t go too far - she made a point not to, as she didn’t much fancy being swept out to sea. But she went out far enough that she wasn’t in the shallows anymore, and had ample room to swim around as much as she pleased. She’d never really been much of a swimmer back home. Other than taking her diving and sailing classes, her time for the water had always been a little curtailed by the other demands of her life. If she wasn’t studying, she was working, and if she wasn’t working, she’d usually been out with Jordan, or one of her other friends. Fitting things in was a mysterious art Maia didn’t think she’d ever gotten the hang of, although maybe she would one day. 

People always wanted to know how to have it all, didn’t they? The perfect relationship, the perfect job, the perfect life. Maia wanted that, of course she did. But she couldn’t help but think that perfect came with a sacrifice. Things didn’t get to be perfect by accident. It took time and effort and commitment, all things that Maia had, but none of that explained how to have  _ everything.  _ She’d always put her career first, her studies. It had been everything to her, and still was. But she’d had a lousy relationship, and now the thought of starting over and finding a new one made her cold. Even the thought of love… was it really worth it? If love was someone shouting down a phone about her talking to other men, she didn’t want it. 

Besides. Relationships were doomed to end, one way or another, weren’t they? Maybe she was better off spending her time with the fish. 

Maia sighed, slowing her pace and rolling onto her back, letting herself float idly on the waves. She could think about giving up on love all she liked, but she also knew herself too well. She might be prickly and fiesty and practical, might truly believe that love might not be worth the effort… but she wanted to believe in fairytales. She’d been like any other little girl, watching movies and reading books and hearing about the magical prince that would come to whisk her away to the life she’d always dreamed of, in a castle far far away. Was there a girl alive that didn’t want a grand romantic gesture like that? She wanted to believe in fairytales… But she was also a scientist. She was too practical to see it as reality. Things like that only happened in the books, and if they really happened to people… then it wouldn’t be to her. Of course it wouldn’t be to her.

It was a bit of a depressing thought, to look back at her life and see what she had to show for it. Her family wasn’t exactly what she’d call much of a family. Sure, they’d been there for her as a child, had clothed her and fed her and sent her to school and raised her. But next to her brother, Maia had always been second best, even more so after he died in a car accident at seventeen. Her parents had never recovered, and every moment after that had been made up of all the things she was doing that her brother could have done better. She’d run away as soon as she could, found a college that would take her and gone without looking back. Sure, she’d had to take on a mountain of debt to do it, but she didn’t regret it either.

When she’d started college, she’d thrown herself into everything she could get her hands on, more or less head first. She’d worked hard, between her bar jobs and her studies. She’d hardly left herself any time for sleep, let alone all the parties that her dorm mates seemed to be holding every other day. It had stayed that way for long enough, until she’d met Jordan. He’d somehow convinced her that he was worth her time and her energy, and she’d tried to fit him in around her busy life. But that had never really been enough time for him, and then, well… things had ended. All of it had ended really. And what did she had for all her trials and suffering? An undergrad degree, half a thesis and precisely one friend back home in New York. She had built herself more of a life on Idris in the last month than she had in her all her days back in New York. 

Maia didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She felt more at peace in the ocean than she’d ever felt anywhere else in the world. This was as close to home as she’d ever been, and all it had taken was a few flights, a few hundred miles and the near complete ruination of everything she had left behind. Maybe Bat would ditch her next too. She clearly wasn’t worth the trouble. But she was good at what she did… and maybe that would be enough for her. Luke, Magnus… they appreciated her work as much as they did her. That could be enough. Couldn’t it?

Before Maia really got the chance to chase that thought down, the waves started to swirl violently around her. Pushing off her back to tread water, Maia glanced around to try and get her bearings. She could see the lights of the house in the distance, but it seemed she’d drifted a lot further than she’d intended to go. She didn’t usually swim this far out, but her thoughts had pulled her attention away and made her complacent. It was nothing she couldn’t manage, but for a moment, she had no idea where she was. And really, the shore looked like it was miles and miles away. 

Shaking her head, Maia kicked off, shifting to a front crawl in order to try and make it back. But the waves seemed to surge up once more, smacking her in the face and pulling her under the surface for a moment, making her cough violently when she re-emerged. She blinked the salt water out of her eyes. The tide was a lot stronger than she’d given it credit for. She knew what the waters tended to be like in the morning, but not only was this a completely different time of day, it was a part of the sea she just didn’t know as well. She hadn’t thought it would make that much difference, but she’d been wrong.

Even after listening to Clary explain how misleading the waters could be, about how she worked as a lifeguard to try and help people who did exactly the kind of idiot thing that Maia had done, she’d gone and done it anyway. Only there was no Clary to rescue her. There was no one on the shore, and no one around for miles. Only Magnus, who would certainly never hear her from all the way out here. So her only option was to forge ahead and try to make it back. She would have to look after herself. It was the only way. Just like always, she had to be responsible for herself. So really, it was nothing new.

Diving forward, another swirling current smacked her in the face, distracting her for a moment as she attempted to swim out of danger. Every time it happened she couldn't help but choke for a second, inhaling salt water that she definitely hadn't expected to be breathing in any time soon. The water was warm enough, but it wasn't exactly a heated swimming pool out there. If anything, the temperature alone was waking her up, and Maia found her pulse racing as she realised how little progress she was making. She could still make it, though. If she just tried a little harder…

Holding her breath, Maia dove beneath the surface, praying that without the surf smacking her in the face every few seconds she might make better progress. Whilst she did at least avoid one problem, she certainly hadn't fixed any of her  _ other  _ problems. The tides were still a lot stronger than she could really fight against, and the shore was a long way off. She might as well have been swimming to the moon. Just as she started to think about how she could find another target further up the coast that would maybe be closer, thanks to all the rocky outcroppings, the water surged and swirled around her violently, dragging her further away from the surface. The water was too strong to fight against, and Maia did her best to steady herself, fighting back her natural reaction to panic in order to preserve what air she had.

From all those diving lessons, she knew she could successfully hold her breath for about two minutes. She had her diving watch on her, but she had very little idea when she'd gone under, since she hadn't intended on going this deep or being anywhere close to two minutes beneath the waves. 

There were a lot of things happening that she hadn't intended. First Jordan, now this… maybe she was the common denominator. Maybe she was kidding herself when she said it was all coincidence and nothing to do with her. She was always involved somehow, so maybe it was her fault. 

Fault didn't really matter though. Maia didn't want everything to end here and now, in the middle of the ocean after her ex boyfriend had drunk called her. This wasn't how it ended. 

So she fought forward, against the waves and the tides, desperately trying to find the surface. But every time she tried, it seemed like the swells just pushed her back, catching her where she was vulnerable and tossing her around. She was nothing more than a leaf on the breeze to the ocean. The sea was huge and powerful and whilst Maia had always respected it and had thought she knew how to navigate it, it seemed she was wrong. Sometimes the ocean just did what it wanted to. 

Right now, it wanted her closer to the bottom than it did to the surface. And Maia was fast realising that there was very little she could do about it. 

Drifting on the waves, she winced when she hit a rock, the sharp edges cutting through the strap of her watch and making her arm bleed. The little device sank down to the bottom and Maia couldn't help but look around for it. But the light from the surface was far too dim for her to see much of anything. It might still be daylight, but it seemed there wasn't much of that penetrating down past the first metre or so of water. How far down was she anyway? Where was up? She wasn't really sure. 

The oxygen supply in her lungs was fast running out, and Maia knew she didn't have much longer left. Her arm was hurting, but it wasn't much compared to the burn in her throat and in her head. Her ability to make any sort of rational choice was fading fast, and there was very little she could do about it. She wondered if anyone would realise what happened. Magnus might. She hoped he got to finish their project, though. He and Luke would make a good team, she thought idly. They'd get along just fine without her.

Had anyone ever really needed her in the first place? She hadn't been a vital part of anyone's life, apart from maybe Jordan, and look how that had turned out. People might be sad for a while that she was gone, but no one was going to  _ miss _ her. Not really. 

Maybe that was a good thing. At least the only person she was hurting at that moment was herself. She had always loved the ocean. Maybe there was something poetic about going under the surf and never coming back. 

Only the rapid beat of her heart and the flood of adrenaline in her system told her there was nothing poetic about dying. It wasn't beautiful or anything pretty. It was just a waste. A stupid, tragic waste of a life, of a person who still had so much she wanted to do with her life. But there was nothing left for her to do, no way out, and eventually, the burning in her lungs got too much. Her body reacted instinctively, even if Maia knew it would do nothing for her. 

Even as she kicked desperately in the direction of what she thought was the surface, she opened her mouth and breathed in.

The salt water flooded her system, and she could feel it starting to burn, her body starting to shut down at the total lack of oxygen. Her legs ran out of energy to get her anyway, and Maia couldn't do anything but float. She'd closed her eyes against the waves at some point, and at that moment there was something blissful about the complete emptiness she was facing. Only for a moment.

But before the panic could really set in, Maia felt something on her waist, and then pushing against her lips. It was warm and soft, and Maia wondered if her lack of faith had been completely unfounded and some angel had come to take her away. The contact lasted for a long moment, and something at the side of her neck started to burn. She started to move her hand upwards, wanting to itch whatever was causing the problem, but something caught her hand before she could manage it, pushing it back down to her side. It almost felt like… fingers. Did that mean someone had come to save her? Had Magnus found her? It seemed impossible, but then, he was a little bit impossible. Impossible and magical and just… wonderful. He'd saved her without knowing it once. Would it be so crazy if he did it again?

An arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her along through the currents. They didn't surface, but her rescuer seemed to be making much better progress through the tides than Maia had been able to. They cut through the sea like a boat, the water seemingly parting way for them to move swiftly to… wherever they were going.

Maia exhaled softly, and attempted to crack her eyes open. The salt water stung a little, and she instinctively closed them again. Her muddled brain decided it would be easier to keep them shut anyway. Everything was warm and soft and lovely, and that whole drowning thing seemed a little minor to her now.

Drowning? Had she been drowning? She could breathe just fine now. How morbid, to think she'd nearly died. There were much nicer things to think of, such as how great it felt to be rushing through the waves like this, something guiding her along. It was like riding a dolphin, or how she imagined riding a dolphin must feel like. She'd never actually done that. She'd never done a lot of things. Really, she hadn't done much. She'd always been too busy reading about it. Maybe she should stop reading and start doing. 

But that was why she’d gone to Idris, wasn’t it? To stop living in a book and get some field experience, to see something of the world that she’d never seen before. She’d lived in New York for so long, and she’d never seen anything like this before. This had been the chance of a lifetime. She’d had to take it, even if Jordan had been unhappy about it, even if her parents were unhappy about it, even if  _ everyone _ was unhappy about it. It had been the right thing to do. Even if she did end up drowning.

But if this was what drowning felt like, it felt very strange. She didn’t feel much like she was drowning at all. In fact, she felt like she was breathing, but that would be silly. She was underwater, after all. She couldn’t be breathing. People didn’t have gills, so she wouldn’t be able to filter the oxygen out of the water. That was how science worked. Right?

All at once, the peace she’d been drifting in was broken, and Maia burst through the surface, air hitting her like a slap in the face. She couldn’t help but gasp, her eyes opening for a moment as she began to cough violently. Saltwater poured out of her, and her hands were shaking as she clung to what felt like a rock, her fingernails digging into the rough surface. The tips of her fingers were sore, and her neck was  _ definitely  _ burning. As she struggled to keep herself out of the water, something bumped her from below, pushing her up onto the rock, lifting her legs out of the water. Maia lay down, back on the ground as she did her best to just breathe, air flooding her system. She felt lightheaded, and  _ exhausted _ . She didn’t realise drowning could make you so tired. Or almost drowning, since she was fairly sure she was still alive.

“What  _ happened _ ?” came a sharp voice, that sounded like it was both right by her ear and a million miles away. 

“She was drowning,” another voice said matter of factly. “I rescued her.”

“Obviously,” the first voice retorted dryly. “But did you need to bring her  _ home _ ?”

Maia turned her head, cracking her eyes a little to try and take a peek of her surroundings. It might have been the exhaustion, or the effect of all that saltwater on her body, but she could have sworn there was a person in the water, and one sitting on a rock not too far away from her, exposed from the water. And if you'd asked her, she would have sworn that person had a tail.

Before she could question it too much, exhaustion took over, and the world faded to black.


End file.
